Saturday, April 23, 2016

Courtallam Border Rahmath Kadai, T.Nagar (4/5)

Being a hardcore fan of parota and south Indian chicken preparations, its been a difficult few months to read reviews about this place and not being able to visit them. Finally got a chance to visit them today and pounced on this opportunity.

Food (5/5)

The items I tried were:

1. Naatu kozhi biryani - had the country chicken biryani several times from other prominent food joints in the city, none would come even in a 100 metres distance to the quality of this offering.

Country chicken is known be tougher meat and I was stunned when the bone came clean as I tried to pull the chicken piece from the biryani; this in other words showcases the tenderness of the meat. Wow!

As for flavours, both the biryani rice and chicken piece had good traditional flavours and combined with salna was a delight for spice lovers. You could alternatively pair it with raita or brinjal dalcha if you aren't able to handle the spice levels.

2. Chicken dishes (chops and gun chicken)

Both of these preparations had comparable flavours - well cooked meat (stiff, if you aren't used to country chicken), adequately spiced and combined great with parota and briyani.

Salna - served pipping hot, it was comparable to spicy non veg curry (I doubt if they include any meat while preparing it - because it looked like a serve to all dish).

My friends who ordered the veechu parota (stuffed parota) and mutton biryani seemed to enjoy their meal just as much as I did.

Ambience (2.5/5)

Needs improvement.

The dining area in the ground floor feels like a furnace, even-though it seemed partly air-conditioned. The first floor had old air-conditioners but temperature-wise was definitely a relief from the heat outside. The presence of house flies in an air conditioned dining joint is not common and they definitely need to work on the hygiene quotient.

In terms of seating, they have tried to make maximum utilisation of available space, but in the process the space feels feels way too cramped.

Service (3/5)

The food is served quick but the staff's attention to tables need to be better; it would also help them in lowering the dining time per customer group which can fix the crowd management issues they seem to be facing.

Pricing

A meal for four heavy duty consumers cost around INR. 1350. I would consider that reasonable considering the quality of their food.

On a summary note, the place is new and has several areas of improvement when it comes to non food aspects. That said, their food is an absolute delight and there was not one dish that I could find fault with.

P.s - Skewing my rating marginally based on the quality of their food.